The weekend past in Roanoke at the SCG Power Nine double-header was a humbling experience that left me questioning what I know and not knowing what to question. I ended up taking home a Timetwister by the end of the weekend by getting 9th Place on Day Two, but the experience has reshaped my view of Vintage and refined my understanding of Meandeck Gifts. So let me tell you what I learned in defeat.
What follows are some situations I’ve encountered recently where I lost the game due to a poor judgment call on my part. All of my plays are justifiable, but in this format the smallest thing can cost you a game – and you need to constantly be re-examining your play if you want to do well. Let’s take a look at what I did wrong.
Today, both Stephen Menendian and Nick Eisel relate their tales of failing horribly, and what they learned in the process. And heck, who am I to leave myself out of the proceedings? Watch with horror as I open a card pool with solid cards, and somehow manage to go 0-5. Why? That, my dear readers, is a mystery I need your help to decipher….
And for the final draft in the “Drafting with the Nationals Team” series, we have Luis “fob on Modo” Scott-Vargas, with commentary by Tim Aten and Paul Cheon.
Josh takes aim at the sacred cows of Time Spiral Limited, telling you why the cards you love aren’t as good as you think. (Some of his picks? Controversial, to say the least.) And as an extra-special bonus, he’ll tell you what cards aren’t being picked high enough!
This format, more than any Sealed format in recent memory, is defined by bombs. There are twice as many rare slots to open something ridiculous, so you can be sure that pretty much everyone you’re up against is going to have at least one card that will be a complete blowout if it resolves. It’s a double-edged sword, though, because that means chances are you have a nuts guy yourself. So how do you deal with that?
Two weeks ago, in the recorded casts heading into Grand Prix: New Jersey, Brian David-Marshall couldn’t keep himself from showing his love for his newfound creation, Pickles. He didn’t give a decklist in the podcasts, but with the key parts of the combo revealed, it was a giddy challenge trying to reconstruct his vision without actually looking. The day those podcasts were released, I went out and started building and testing. Many iterations later, this is what I devised for the Battle Royale.
I would imagine it would be hard being a Sliver. I mean, you meet a new friend one day and up sprouts an extra head out of nowhere. Then another friend joins the group and your arms turn into some kind of weapon. Then one of them goes away and your extra head disappears. Another one comes down and you start shooting webs out of your butt or you grow spines on your back. Seems like it would be frustrating, to say the least.
The true tragedy of Sensei’s Divining Top is that it made everyone ignore Crown of Convergence… But those days are over, my friend. In today’s Standard, there’s no reason whatsoever not to play Crown of Convergence, assuming that’s your idea of a good time. And I’m going to try to make it fun for you, with not one, but two decks…
A list of archetypes was thankfully made available to us via Brian David-Marshall’s time-shifted “Swimming with Sharks” article – which, when stacked up next to the Round 6 Standings from Worlds, neatly sums up to a list of archetypes matched with the players who played them and the results they had after six rounds of play. This gives us the opportunity to go running with numbers some more, and to learn some very interesting things about the Standard metagame in motion.
Predictions are funny things. I tend to predict things when I see patterns: American Idol winners, how drivers act on highways, how someone will take a compliment or a criticism. And in the world of Magic, prediction means finding “the next big thing” — the angle that everyone is either missing or simply leaning towards, and it takes that one big finish to get everyone on board. So let’s peer into the crystal ball, with Worlds looming this weekend, and see what we can see.
The report from Day 2 of Pro Tour: Kobe arrives, and Tiago’s mad Time Spiral Limited skills come with it! Watch as Tiago shares the good times involved in running around Japan, then goes into phenomenal detail on each of his matches and talks about the drafts he wanted to have versus the drafts he got.
Kenji dissects his final draft at Pro Tour: Kobe… But more importantly, he gives you his Top 10 common picks from every color! (He promised you just the top 5, but he couldn’t stop himself.)
Continuing with the “Drafting with the U.S. National Team” series, today we have National Champion Paul “Seven Bells” Cheon, with commentary by one Mister Tim Aten. How does the U.S. of A. fare today?
Last weekend, I did two Coldsnap drafts. In the first, I had five Skreds, four Elves, six Snow Lands and four Auroch Herds into double Rimehorn… And I lost in the first round. I entered another 8-4 queue, and realized I didn’t really want to play about two seconds after the draft started. I rare-drafted like crazy, ended up with a very marginal pile, and split in the finals.
That got me to wondering — how much influence does luck play in drafting? So I performed a wide-scale experiment, taking several old draft decks both losing and winning, to see how much of a difference luck made… And the results were surprising.
